Informations:

Synopis, Cast etc.

Ready Player One is an upcoming American science-fiction adventure film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline, based on Cline’s novel of the same name. The film stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, and T. J. Miller. The film is scheduled to be released on March 30, 2018.

Premise

In the dystopian near-future, much of Earth’s population centers have become slum-like cities; to escape their desolation, people engage in the virtual reality world of the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), where they can engage in numerous activities for work, education, and entertainment.

Wade Owen Watts is a teenager from Columbus, Ohio who frequents the OASIS and attempts to win “Anorak’s Game”, a game created by the recently-deceased creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, in search of its Easter Egg. The winner is to be granted full ownership of the OASIS and Halliday’s $240 billion fortune. While Wade works with several friends from the OASIS to discover Anorak’s treasure, the corporate giant Innovative Online Industries (IOI) employs a number of players to try to discover the treasure first and seize control of OASIS for themselves.

Cultural references

As with the book, the film has numerous homages to the popular culture of the 1980s. Among licensed characters and elements used in the film include The Iron Giant, the DeLorean time machinefrom Back to the Future, outfitted with KITT from Knight Rider, the DC Comics universe, The Lord of the Rings, Freddy Kruger, Duke Nukem, the possessed car from Christine, the van from The A-Team, the modified Ford Falcon used in Mad Max, the monster truck Bigfoot, and Kaneda’s motorcycle from Akira.[3][4] Spielberg recognized that his past films were a significant part of the 1980s popular culture, and to avoid being accused of “vanity”, he opted to avoid using many references to his own films.[5]

Cast

Tye Sheridan as Wade Owen Watts / Parzival[6]

Olivia Cooke as Samantha Evelyn Cook / Art3mis[7]

Ben Mendelsohn as Nolan Sorrento[8]

Mark Rylance as James Donovan Halliday / Anorak[9]

Simon Pegg as Ogden Morrow[10]

T. J. Miller as i-R0k[11]

Lena Waithe as Aech[12]

Hannah John-Kamen[13]

Win Morisaki as Daito[14]

Philip Zhao as Shoto[15]

Ralph Ineson[16] as Rick

Letitia Wright as Reb

Production

On June 18, 2010, it was announced that Warner Bros. and De Line Pictures had won the auction from Paramount, Fox, and Temple Hill Entertainment of the film rights to the sci-fi novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which was not yet published.[17] Cline was set to write the script for the film, which Donald De Line and Dan Farah would produce.[17] Eric Eason rewrote Cline’s script,[18] and Zak Penn was hired to rewrite the previous drafts by Cline and Eason. Village Roadshow Pictures came aboard to co-finance and co-produce the film with WB.[19] Steven Spielberg signed on to direct and produce the film, which Kristie Macosko Krieger would also produce along with Line and Farah.[20]

Casting

Three actresses were top-runners for the role of Art3mis: Elle Fanning, Olivia Cooke, and Lola Kirke;[21] In September 2015, Cooke was announced as the female lead role.[7] Ben Mendelsohn was cast in the film to play the villainous role as an executive for an OASIS-based corporation.[8] Tye Sheridan was confirmed for the lead role of Wade at the end of February 2016.[6] In mid-March 2016, Simon Pegg entered final talks to join the cast in the role of Ogden Morrow, co-creator of the OASIS.[10] Mark Rylance joined the cast as James Halliday, the creator of OASIS.[9] In June 2016, T. J. Miller was cast in the film to play a bounty hunter,[11] Hannah John-Kamen was cast for an unspecified supporting role,[13] and Japanese singer-actor Win Morisaki was cast as Toshiro Yoshiaki, also known as Daito.[14]

Filming

Production was slated to begin in July 2016.[22] Screenwriter Zak Penn tweeted on July 1, 2016, that the first week of filming was completed.[23] In August and September 2016, filming took place in Birmingham, England which included Livery Street in the Jewellery Quarter area which also utilized the backpackers hostel Hatters for internal filming, other locations in the city included the formal industry area of Digbeth with the setting in grungy dystopian Ohio.[24][25]

Music

On June 9, 2016, Variety stated that Spielberg’s regular collaborator John Williams was planning to compose the film’s score.[26] However in July 2017, it was reported that Williams had left the project to work on Spielberg’s The Papers instead, with Alan Silvestri hired to take over scoring duties for Ready Player One.[1]